The Missing
by pyrrhic victory
Summary: Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone has a secret to hide. Everyone has a memory to treasure. There are events that shape you, and moments where you must decide who you are. This is a collection of moments and events, secrets and memories.
1. Chapter One: Savagery

((**Disclaimer**: I'm sure you will all be shocked to hear that I am not Brain Jacques and, therefore, do not own Redwall.))

They bring him in like a savage, and Lesina thinks, maybe, that's what he is. The cub is snarling, snapping, struggling like a drowning creature fighting to get at that last little bit of air, and when the otter punches him, hard, in the throat, Lesina thinks, maybe, that's what he needs.

The little savage sags briefly in their arms, and its time enough for them to grab his paws and tie them behind his back. He surges back to his feet before they can get the rope tied completely around the oak tree, but, since there _are_ four of them and since they _are_ used to fighting for their lives, they manage to subdue him long enough to tie the knots. They back away quickly afterwards, though, because the mouse has turned on them like any wounded creature with nothing left to loose will do, and there is blood on his claws and blood ringing his muzzle.

"This one ain't worth it, Sina." One of the otters says, looking first at the savage and then at Lesina, and its hard to tell which one he looks at with more pity. "The cub's insane."

"Not insane." She argues, though she's not completely sure, herself. "Tortured. He's still in there, somewhere."

"Maybe." Another otter speaks up, and he's pressing a paw against the deep wounds in his neck. "But 'e just tried to bite my throat out, and, I'm thinkin', maybe he's buried a bit too deep for rescuin'."

Lesina crosses her arms over her chest and intensifies the look of determination on her face. She doesn't answer them, just gives them a look that she hopes will shame them into leaving.

"Honestly, Sina." Says the first one, and Lesina realizes it's Skipper's youngest nephew. He's winded but unwounded, and he's looking at the mouse like he wants to break the creature's neck, wants to put him down like a fledgling with a broken wing. "Skipper'll kill me if you get hurt."

"He wouldn't have a chance to. Skipper will die of shock if I get hurt by a mouse that's half my age and twice as foolish." Lesina snaps back. "I am old enough now that I can look after myself, I think." She gives the otter a harsh look. "Now, go. If senility doesn't set in, I'll be by the kitchens for lunch soon enough."

Skipper's nephew ducks his head and has the decency to look somewhat humiliated. "Yes, ma'am. I'll let the cooks know."

The otters leave quickly after that, and Lesina reminds herself to tell Skipper he's letting his brother raise his youngest cub to be far too obedient. All his older brothers and sisters would have stayed for a few minutes longer. Granted, they would've left either blood-stained or teary-eyed, but they would have argued. This youngest one...Lesina just isn't sure about him.

"What d'you want?" The mouse demands, and his voice is harsh and challenging. "What d'you want from me?"

Lesina turns to him and gives him a long look. "Who says I want anything from _you_?" She retorts sharply. "You're half-starved and more than half crazy. Most would say you're absolutely useless."

"Aye, well, everyone always takes something." His eyes are wide, dangerous, feral. "No one's so happy with what they have that they don't wanna take something from me, as well."

"Oh, you're a clever one." She says, an eyebrow arching in disapproval. "But far too cynical. Truly, cub, you should try to be a bit more optimistic."

He snarls and lunges at her, and the rope tearing into his flesh doesn't even seem to register. There are flecks of red in his eyes, and Lesina notes them with cold interest. She's seen the blood wrath before. But never in one so young.

"Optimism is for those that aren't tied to _trees_." His voice is rough and more growl than anything else, but Lesina thinks she hears something other than rage and hate in that voice of his. His voice is rough, yes, but perhaps with restrained tears of frustration or fear, and Lesina has long held the belief that if someone is capable of crying, they are capable of healing. It's only those fools that hold everything inside that are beyond help.

"You'd be untied promptly enough if you'd just stop trying to gouge out other beast's eyes."

"They've got two. They can spare one." The mouse returns immediately, and Lesina truly does admire his wit. But there's something below that wit. Some intelligence that she hadn't expected to see, and Lesina wonders what kind of creature he really is behind this facade of brutality and hate.

"They've also got two lungs. Tell me, do you intend to take one of those, as well?"

He snarls at her, all fangs and fury. "Just tell me what you want." He says. Demands. "Just_ tell_ me."

"I'm too old to want anything other than a good night's rest, an early afternoon nap, and a few tears at my funeral. Since you don't seem to be the crying type, I think we can safely assume there's nothing I want from you."

He tugs at the ropes, ripping his skin. There's blood running freely from his wrists now, and he just doesn't seem to care. He doesn't answer her; he doesn't believe her. He stares at her like she's a monster, and he's a monster, too, and he's just waiting to see who's going to devour who.

He's looking at her like a cornered and crippled wolf would look at a rampaging badger, and it makes her feel sick inside that someone has taken an innocent and made them into this.

She leaves him there, knowing better than to release him, and she wanders through the woods for an hour or so before going into the kitchen. In the bustle and the bellowing, she gets lost. She enjoys it for awhile, but then it grows tiring, and she takes the food and goes back to the mouse.

And she cuts him free because she finds him crying, and she doesn't ask him who he was crying for just like he doesn't ask her why she let him free. They sit, and they eat, and they don't say a damn thing because Lesina knows that words don't really matter, anyway. And she knows that trust grows best if nurtured with silence.

**. x . x .**

He's getting better, this half-savage of hers, and, despite the fact that he's only been here for three days, he's already managed to become a hero among the cubs. They love him; they worship him. They crawl over him while he's pretending to be asleep and pull his fur to wake him up. They scream in cheerful terror when he sends them flying into the creek, and they laugh happily when he leaps in after them to fish them back out.

It didn't happen peacefully, this little bond he has with the cubs. The first time he saw a cub about to totter into the creek, he had leaped for it, grabbed it, and been attacked by half of Skipper's otters.

They'd managed to beat him unconscious in the thirty seconds it took Lesina to force her old bones into action, and she'd hit each of them over the head with her cane until Skipper gently forced her to stop. He'd seen it, too, and, while he wasn't particularly pleased with his otters, she had to understand that sometimes mistakes were made.

She had to forgive them for jumping to the most obvious conclusion.

And she cursed them and rallied against them and bellowed that cubs were never bad, just misdirected and afraid, and they bowed their heads in mock-shame and never once thought they had done anything wrong.

The mouse still bears the bruises from that fight, but he carries himself as if he doesn't feel them, and, when the cubs that follow him around wrestle him to the ground and accidentally pound on those bruises of his, he doesn't seem to care.

"That new orphan of yours..." Skipper says to her one night while the mouse is tending to his flock like a particularly sweet-minded and foul-mouthed older brother. "He's a far sight kinder to those cubs than anyone would've foreseen."

"_I_ foresaw it." Lesina retorts because old age hasn't improved her cantankerous nature. "He's still mostly a cub himself, after all."

"Aye, but he's a cold one. He won't so much as speak those his own age, and he lashes out at every adult other than you." Skipper eyes her sidelong and doubtful. "Why he likes _them_ so much, I don't understand."

"He doesn't like them." She snaps grumpily, still not quite ready to forgive him. "Watch him. He only smiles when they're looking for it. He doesn't like them any more than he likes the rest of us."

Skipper's eyes narrow. He sizes up the mouse. "Then why's he do it?"

"He's protecting them." Lesina says, her tone harsh and her eyes soft.

"Protecting them?" Skipper demands. "From who?"

"From us."

"He thinks _we're_ dangerous?"

She just looks up at him and tries to forgive him his ignorance. She's spent the majority of her life taking in orphans and setting them on the right paths. She's raised eleven cubs that nobody wanted, and she knows how they think. Knows what they fear. The bruises the mouse bears so easily aren't anything close to the first ones he's had to deal with, and the condition they found him in says nothing good about where he came from.

This new orphan of hers is used to pain and used to betrayal, and he still watches her every time she gets within striking distance, his eyes just a little off-center. Staring. Watching her out of the corners of his eyes, just in case she attacks. It hurts her a little every time he flinches when her voice gets a little too loud or her gestures a little too sharp. But she knows better than to take it personally.

This isn't the first orphan she's taken in; this isn't the first broken heart she's tried to set right.

"Just keep your otters away from him, Skipper. He's got a good soul."

"He tried to tear out Erian's throat with his teeth."

"I never said he was _polite_, Skipper. Just that he means well. And if he doesn't trust anyone, well, that's doing no harm to you. And if he doesn't like you, well, he's not the first." Her paws tighten around her cane, and she watches her newest charge as he lies on the grass with a dozen defenseless cubs sprawled around him and on him, and she watches the way his eyes never stop scrutinizing the adults nearby. She watches the way he never stops looking for a threat to protect them against.

He's a strange one, this half-savage of hers, but she thinks, maybe, he's worth saving.

**. x . x .**

It's the fifth day he's been here, and he's screaming at the top of his lungs at Skipper's nephew because the fool had the audacity to help him to his feet when one of the other otters knocked him down.

Lesina comes to the nephew's rescue because he's backing away, paws up and mouth twisted in confusion, but the anger and frustration in his eyes says he's about one more insult away from swinging those paws at the mouse's head. And, once that happens, Lesina can't guarantee one or both of them won't get their fool head smashed open.

"Mouse!" She shrieks, and the mouse twists to look at her, lips lifting in a snarl. "You woke me from my _nap_!"

He flings back his shoulders in an arrogant disrespect he hasn't shown for days. "If you'd like," he growls threateningly, "I can send you into another one."

Her eyes widen because he hasn't threatened her for at least four days, and Skipper's nephew takes this threat as suitable grounds for attack.

She watches the two of them rolling around like wildcats or wolves, hissing and roaring and hitting each other with a brutality she hadn't expected from Skipper's nephew but had certainly seen in the mouse. And she can do nothing. Because she is old and because she is frail and because she has left her cane beside the tree she was sleeping under and has no other weapons.

So she screams at them to stop and watches, waiting and hoping that one of them will just win already so that peace could be restored.

And it happens, curiously enough, when the otter finally wins and then, strangely, _stupidly_, rolls over one more time so that it's the mouse that seems to have won, seems to have gained control.

"Alright?" The otter asks, winded and furious and staring right up into the mouse's berserker glare like he can see something behind it. "Al_right_?"

The mouse stares down at him, his paws clenched in the otter's shirt, and he just looks. For a long time, he just stares. Then he stands up and reaches down to pull the otter to his feet, and he nods. "Alright."

Lesina watches the two of them, watches the way the orphan looks down first, and decides, maybe, Skipper's youngest nephew is worth something after all.

**. x . x .**

The two of them are inseparable now, of course. The mouse follows the otter like a shadow, and the otter keeps an eye on him whenever he isn't too busy. There's respect there and something like friendship. It's the nephew that steps in whenever the mouse gets too angry, too scared, and starts trying to fight something. It's the nephew that takes those punches, and it's the nephew that spends more than one hour vomiting on his knees because the mouse is good, too good, with those quick kicks to the lower abdomen that send all the muscles in the torso heaving desperately.

But the nephew doesn't seem to mind the price he pays. He seems, instead, to understand that the mouse just needs something to hurt, sometimes. He seems to be glad that the mouse has decided to hurt him because he knows he can survive it.

Lesina takes him aside and tells him he's a good, smart, faithful little thing and that he's her very favorite among his family. He just smiles at her and winks. "I always am, ma'am." But the smile he gives her is crooked because one side of his mouth is swollen and scabbed.

"You're alright?" She asks, gesturing at the wound.

He reaches up to touch it and then shrugs. "I will be." He says. "And he doesn't hit as hard as he used to."

"He's taming fast." She notes.

"No, ma'am." He shakes his head, and her gaze sharpens. Because as often as she's done this in the past, she's not near stupid enough to think she actually knows what she's doing. "He's nothing like tame. He's just not as afraid anymore."

And she nods because maybe he's right, and she pats him on the shoulder, finally figures out that his name is Raulin, and sends him on his way.

**. x . x .**

The mouse sidles up to her out of nowhere, looking at her like he's a little afraid and a little hopeful, and he holds up two slices of pie.

She stares. "What's this?"

"My mother used to make them." And his eyes flicker briefly. Dark-light-dark, and she knows it hurts to talk about his mother. He hesitates, staring at her like he's not sure what to make of her lack of response, and then adds. "I wanted one this morning."

"Doesn't explain why you're handing it to me at sunset."

His eyes dart around. "It took me awhile to remember how she did it."

And he's searching for recognition, for some kind of comfort, and so she smiles and takes the extra slice of blueberry pie he's got, and she is truly caught off guard by how _good_ it actually is. "Your mother," she says, "was a glory of a mouse."

He nods, reassured by her reaction, and takes a seat beside her. "I loved her the most." He says, and she doesn't have to look at him to realize that he's got that intensely focused look on his face that he gets when he's trying his hardest to keep from crying.

"Well, I can understand why, if she made pies like this."

"My father killed her, you know." And he says it like it's nothing. Says it like he doesn't care. But his paws are trembling and his own slice of pie is shaking on the plate like she imagines he's shaking on the inside, and a great wave of pity renders her utterly speechless. "Because she told him not to sell me. Because she fought him when he tried to send me away."

And she'd expected something like this because she'd seen the way he snarled when Skipper's brother had jokingly threatened his mate, but it was still hard to hear. She thought of the way he protected the cubs, and she saw him trying to be like his mother, trying to live up to the memory of the one he loved the most and the one he probably thinks he killed.

"I don't know what happened to my brothers and sisters. They were too young to sell, so maybe they're still home." He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "I had a friend whose parents wouldn't sell him. Maybe he watches them."

"I imagine he does."

"Ah, well." He looks at her sidelong like always, but there's no fear. No watchfulness. "You don't know this particular friend."

She doesn't know what to say to that and so she says nothing. Some things have to be nurtured with silence. He isn't looking for her opinion, merely her attention.

He shifts around a little, pokes at the pie but doesn't eat. He's still got more to say; he's just not sure how to say it. She gives him time, and gladly, because she's learned that, sometimes, that's all that these cubs need.

"And I could go back for them, but I don't know the way. It's been three seasons now, and my tribe never stayed in one place longer than a season. They're gone."

She just looks at him, watches the way he stares into the sunset like he's seeing something there that he can barely stand to watch. Like he's seeing his siblings begging for his help. Like he's watching his mother dying.

"They had me fight, you know. That was..." He waves his free paw in a strange, half-hearted gesture. "That was what I did. They put me in a cage with another slave, and we fought until one of us died." He sets the plate down on the ground and looks at his paws, turns them over, stares.

"Sometimes," he says, "I think I'll never get the blood off."

She sighs and looks down at her own, withered and weak and bony. "That," she says, "is because you never will."

He looks up at her, hurt and confused, and she knows he wants her to lie to him, but she's never lied to her orphans. Not once.

"It's a permanent stain, cub. You will always remember."

He nods slowly like he always knew that and then he sighs. He picks up his pie and she picks up hers, and they eat in silence while the watch the sunset.

"I've been thinking," he said, "that's it's about time you name me."

She startles a bit because she had been mostly asleep and twists to look at him. "You have your own name." She says. "Use it."

"No." The vehemence surprises her. She hadn't been expecting it. "They didn't want me. I don't want them." He looks at her. "Give me a name, Lesina."

She considers her. "Well, what kind of name would you like?"

He shrugs. "Something the creatures at Redwall will like. Raulin promised he'd take me to see them sometime this season."

She snorts. "You could always call yourself Martin. They'd probably stick you on a pedestal and worship you."

He mulls this over for awhile and then shakes his head. "No. Martin's too...perfect. He doesn't seem real."

"Aye, well, there's a truth." She lapses into silence for awhile and then, because she's been thinking for awhile now that this name would fit, she offers him something else. Something a little less than perfect. "Luke."

He grimaces slightly at the name, like he doesn't like the taste. Then he tilts his head, blinks, and repeats it. "Luke." He says and then, after finishing off the last of the pie, he nods. "Alright." He says. "I'll be Luke."

**. x . x .**

((Note: Alright, so, this is a collection of short stories. I've never done one before and decided I might as well try it out. I'm using present tense which, as you may have noticed, isn't my strong point. I would really appreciate some constructive criticism on this. Also, none of the characters that will be mentioned in this fic (besides, of course, Martin) can be found in any of the Redwall books. Yes, there's a Luke. But he's _my_ Luke. Ok? So...don't get confused.

The next update will revolve around Luke and Sath. And, if you have no idea who they are, you can always go read Regal. It might help a bit.))


	2. Chapter Two: Loyalty

Zath is a failure, and he accepted that a long time ago. He isn't perfect, he isn't even close, and he doesn't particularly care for the way others expect him to be. He especially doesn't like the way the little fool of a mouse has taken to staring at him, all full of recrimination and hatred kept in a choke hold, and Zath really wants the idiot to just _hit him_ already.

"I left them in your care, Zath." And even the mouse's _voice_ has changed, and he stands there with his paws crossed over his chest and a sword hanging at his waist, and Zath wants to take that ridiculous relic from its sheath and stab the mouse through the heart.

"Y'know," he drawls instead, "how come you got to change your name? I never got that chance. Maybe I wanna be called Avenger. Or Goreblade. Or just Death. That's simple, Death. Adds a bit of intimidation." He tilts his head, smirks a little. "You like that?"

The mouse's teeth grate together loudly enough that Zath's crooked smile flattens, and he just stares, his eyebrows arched in mocking inquiry. "What're you gonna do, Luke?" He asks, and he smiles with only one side of his mouth to hide the fact that his teeth are ripping open the inside of one of his cheeks. He thinks back to how things used to be, how trusting they used to be, and Zath's grin widens to cover what might have been a wince of regret. "You gonna hit me? You gonna _kill _me?"

"You killed my brothers."

"I did _not_!" And, yes, so Zath might be a failure, but he he has never been a murderer. Luke should know that. _Luke_, of all creatures, should know that. "Maybe I didn't save them. Maybe I didn't _die for them_. But, damn it Luke, did you even think of what you were _asking_ before you went gallivanting off into the sunset?"

"Gallivanting?" Luke demands with something like desperation. "'_Gallivanting_?' I was _sold_ into _slavery_, Zath!"

"And you left me behind to look after your whole damn _family_!" Zath throws up his paws, eyes spitting the fire that tries, and fails, to burn away the shame inside him. "I am not a damn hero, Luke! And neither are you!"

Zath waves to the red walls around them, to the green-robed creatures roaming around in peace and tranquility. "_This_," he spits out, "is not your home! _This_ is not where you belong! And if you've somehow managed to trick yourself into thinking they'll keep you here once someone tells them who you used to be-"

And _that_ works, if nothing else does. The mouse has his paws clenched in Zath's shirt and Zath's back pressed up against the wall before the squirrel could even finish his threat. "Don't." Luke hisses. "Don't you _dare_ go digging up my past."

Zath smiles at him, challenging him and mocking him and begging him, please, to just _kill him_ already. "C'mon, Lukie," he taunts, "use that pretty sword of yours. You wanna keep me quiet?" He spits directly in the mouse's face. "Then just _kill_ me."

**. x . x .**

Luke was never sure what to make of Zath, even before the squirrel went mad. How the idiot even found him, Luke doesn't know. Things aways seem to just work out for Zath. The squirrel is uncommonly lucky and can be unnaturally charming, when properly motivated. The only reason Zath hadn't been sold into slavery along with all the other of their tribe's cubs old enough to be worth buying had been Zath's ability to charm the elders into keeping him around.

And why Zath hadn't looked after Luke's younger siblings, Luke doesn't understand. It had been simple enough. The squirrel was just supposed to keep them _safe_. But he'd failed or surrendered or just stopped caring, and they're dead now.

Or so Zath had told him with a shrug and an awkwardly apologetic smile. It was the kind of smile you'd give if you broke a friend's pretty trifle. It was as if Zath had ripped Luke's favorite tunic. He doesn't seem to understand that those were _lives_ Zath lost, and Luke isn't sure what to make of the half-monster his friend has become.

He wants to ask Lesina, of course, but the old squirrel has been dead for nearly two seasons now. The last time he'd cried had been at her funeral, and he has been thinking lately that maybe he is incapable of crying now. If he _could've_ cried, he'd have cried over his siblings. Or even Zath's downfall.

But he didn't. And he doesn't. He's taken to looking at the world unflinchingly, and it has jaded him.

"You _would_ be keepin' watch on a building that hasn't been attacked for the past twenty seasons."

Luke starts and twists, facing Zath with a distinct lack of welcome. "Hm." He says. "I forgot how stubborn you were."

Zath's grin twists up only one side of his mouth, and the squirrel moves closer. "Aye, well, nothin' like a good hour and a half spent climbing a flight of stairs." He laughs. "Makes you value what you used to have."

"You should be in the infirmary."

"Oh, please, mate. I've been beaten bloodier than this more times than I can count." He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "A little concussion is nothing."

"Those ribs are broken."

"Aren't they always?" Zath retorts. "I swear the things spend more time bein' healed than bein' healthy."

Luke tilts his head and stares pointedly at the star-speckled sky. "You could try to stay out of fights."

Zath snorts. "And birds can stop flyin', mate, but they never do."

Luke sighs. It's true; Zath is the type that needs violence like most need affection. "Why d'you do that?" Luke asks. "Make creatures fight you? Provoke us into attackin'?"

"Cuz, mate. If someone cares enough to hit you..." He trails off, shrugs again. "Well, they care."

"I might've killed you." Luke tells him, admitting finally to what he has been trying to deny. He _had_ lost himself for awhile. He _had_ nearly killed the squirrel. He tries so hard to be what the Redwallers want, but there is still a monster lurking under his skin.

"Might've." Zath agrees. "But if this is the afterlife, I'm sorely disappointed. Someone told me there'd be fire and brimstone."

Luke snorts and turns to look at him. "You're not welcome here, Zath. You're too violent. I won't have somebody getting hurt because you can't control your temper."

"And by somebody," Zath says, "you mean somebody _else_. Because you don't give a damn about me."

Luke's eyes narrow, and he wants to argue, but he can't find the strength to lie. "You let my brothers die, Zath. Why would I care about you?"

"I dunno, mate. Isn't forgiveness one of those new moral tenets of yours?" Zath looks at him sidelong and sly. "Aren't you supposed to avoid hatin' creatures?"

"I don't _hate _you, Zath. I just want you as far away from those I'm supposed to protect as possible."

Zath rolls his eyes. "Isn't lyin' against that moral code o' yours, Luke? Aren't you above such things now?"

"I'm not _lying_, Zath." And Luke knows he needs to cut the conversation short, because he wants to punch Zath in the mouth. To shut up him. To silence him. Because...because...

"Oh, yes, you are. You're doin' the worst kinda lying as can be done." Zath sounds disgusted and disappointed, and Luke wants to yell that _Zath _is the one who'd let cubs die. That _Zath _is the monster here. "You're lyin' to yourself." Zath sounds proud and contemptuous, and, when he goes to hobble his way down the stairs, Luke doesn't stop him.

But he doesn't help him either and he hopes that Martin would overlook this little transgression. Because he can't. Luke just can't help the creature who'd killed his family, no matter how close they used to be.

He can't.

**. x . x .**

"You're not leaving." Luke observes with something like a dangerous growl. Zath pauses to look over his shoulder, a bemused smile flitting across his face. Had the fool _really_ thought Zath was going to leave just because Luke told him to?

"Of course not." He says, his voice cheerful and the very definition of insolent. "Have you _tried_ the food, Luke? I wouldn't leave if the damn place was on _fire_."

Luke glares at him. "You," he says, "are leaving if I have to escort you out myself."

"Don't be foolish, mate." Zath says it with a smile because Luke expects to see a snarl, and Zath loves unsettling him. "You try and drag me outta here, and blood will be spilt. Right now, I'm not hurting anything. I'm not harming anyone. Let me stay."

Luke's eyebrows arch upwards because it's the closest to begging he's ever see Zath go, and Zath tries and fails to keep his resentment from showing. Luke knows him better than anyone else still living, and Zath wishes, just once and with a bitterness that spells out he impossible he knows it to be, for something like the old trust. The old, stupid, naive trust.

"You're hopeless, you know." And the words come out sharp and accusing, and Luke rocks backwards, startled by the sudden change in tone.

"Hopeless?" He repeats doubtfully. "What makes me hopeless?"

"You're just-you're so _stupid_, Luke." And even now he doesn't forget to call Luke by this new name he's chosen. Because there could be a Redwaller skipping down any hallway at any moment, and, traitorous as Luke thinks he is, Luke is still Zath's best friend. "You think that just because you've got some kind of moral code, that the world's gonna honor it. You think that just cuz you're a _hero_, the world's gonna humor you."

Luke just stares at him for a long, long moment. Then, "What?"

And he says it in that tone of voice he uses when he talks to very small cubs or very stupid adults, and it makes Zath want to dig his claws into the back of Luke's head and slam his skull over and over against the stones.

He thinks about telling Luke how hard he fought to keep Luke's brothers safe. How he nearly died. How he crawled half-blind and more than half-dead through the crimson-stained mud. How he still sometimes wakes up to the feeling of a boot on his neck and tears in his eyes.

How he had tried and failed and, gods, couldn't Luke just _forgive_ him, already? He'd tried. He'd _tried_. And maybe Luke could have saved them, but Luke hadn't been there. Had left _Zath_ there, and Zath had always been nothing more than a quick mind and quicker fists. He could brawl, but he couldn't fight, and, damn it, he had _tried_.

So what if he'd failed?

So what if he hadn't been strong enough?

Couldn't Luke just give him credit for trying?

Couldn't Luke just forgive him for not being good enough?

"What do you mean, Zath?" Luke's voice is cold and clear, and Zath looks away.

"Nothing." He lies. "It's nothing."

"Then I suggest you get whatever objects you've managed to steal from the honest creatures around here and move on."

And it hurts, that condemnation in Luke's voice. Because its so certain. So _sure_.

And Zath wants to take all his scars and all his suffering and grind them into Luke's face until the mouse understands. Until he _recognizes_ that he isn't the only one that's hurting.

"You give someone an impossible task, Luke, and they're gonna fail."

Luke is staring at him like he's crazy, and Zath thinks, maybe, he is. But he's not near crazy enough to think strapping on an ancient sword and putting on a face of quiet nobility is going to make his pain go away. "It's not that hard to leave, Zath. If you need assistance, I'd be glad to carry you out of these walls myself."

And Zath just smiles at him because he's not leaving. He's never leaving again. He has no clue what stupid, unattainable goal Luke will assign to him next, but he's damn certain that he won't fail this time. He'll die, if he has to. But he won't fail.

Zath is a failure, and maybe he's been that way for a long time, maybe he was born to be that way.

But he's not going to let Luke down again. Because the fact that Luke hates him so deeply now only shows just how much he loved him once, and Zath is going to do everything he can so that, maybe, he'll be worthy of the friendship he failed.

"You want me gone so badly, Luke?" Zath asks, and his smile stretches wide and wicked. "Then come catch me."

And Zath is off and gone, racing down the hallways, and he knows full well that Luke will never catch him. Luke is the stronger; Zath is the quicker. It's always been that way. It always will be.

But even as he runs, he spares glances back to make certain Luke's still behind him. Because he's not losing him. Not again.


	3. Chapter Three: Friendship

"Oy, mate, why're you all in black?" Luke had expressly forbidden Zath to speak to any of the visitors. And so Luke should have known that Zath would, therefore, take it upon himself to seek out out one of the visitors and befriend them permanently. Or just beat the poor fool into unconsciousness. He had, apparently, decided on violence. "You mournin' something?"

Syrix arched a brow at him. "Would you like it to be you?"

"Oooh, you're threatening me?" Zath asked, a crazy little half-smile tilting up one corner of his mouth. "You threatenin'?"

Syrix looked bored, looked unimpressed. "Should I be?"

They stood perfectly still, just staring, and yet, seasons later, Luke would swear they circled each other like wolves.

And then the stillness shattered and they were fighting before anyone could object. They were fighting before anyone but Luke (who had known, all along, that this meeting would not go well) had even really noticed they were _talking_.

Luke came charging down the stairs, across the grounds, and took a flying leap into the middle of them. For his troubles, he got a busted lip and a black eye, but Syrix and Zath separated, circled around, eyed each other like crows competing for the same shred of meat.

"Listen, you two," Luke growled, "you _will_ get along. You will _not_ fight. You-_**Zath**_!" Zath, who'd been about to lunge at Syrix while the otter's attention was momentarily focused on Luke, darted back, not looking the slightest bit guilty. "Zath, leave him _alone_!"

Zath chuckled and winked at Syrix who was treating him to a glare that would have frozen a lesser squirrel's blood in his veins. "Why don't you find me later?" Zath suggested, winking coyly and tilting his chin back to bear his throat in a gesture of utter unconcern and casual recklessness. "When your nursemaid's not around."

"He's more your nursemaid than mine." The otter replied, his voice quiet confidence in contrast to Zath's outspoken arrogance. But his voice was just as dangerous. And just as sure. "I highly doubt he came charging to _my_ rescue."

"If you two cannot get along, I will banish you _both_." Luke snapped irritably, his paw reaching up to put pressure on his bleeding lip. "And, just to clarify, I didn't '_rescue'_ either of you. You two idiots were about to start a riot in front of the cubs."

The squirrel and the otter craned their necks to look at an entire horde of cubs standing quite a distance away, gaping at them. They both snorted and turned back, their mouths opening at the same instant.

"Maybe they'd learn something."

"Good to start teachin' 'em early."

The two stared at each other with identical faces of revulsion, disgusted by the fact that they shared even one sentiment. Without another word, they turned in opposite directions and walked away.

x.x.x

Of course, their animosity didn't end there. They tortured each other. They beat each other senseless. More than once, Luke went down to breakfast to find Zath looking smug while Syrix hobbled in with gashes on his face and, occasionally, a broken arm. Of course, it was just as likely to be Syrix smiling quietly to himself while Zath tried to eat past shredded lips and bloody gums. The two couldn't _stand_ each other. Their loathing knew no boundaries, limitations, or exceptions.

Luke _tried _to talk to them about it. He went to Syrix first of course, the otter being the more reasonable of the two.

"Why do you hate him?" He asked. And then, because, well, _that_ was rather obvious, (who actually _liked_ Zath?) he immediately asked a different question. "Why don't you just ignore him?"

"Would _you_ ignore any creature who wants you dead?" Syrix retorted, sending Luke a look that might have sent a different mouse cowering. But Luke was used to Syrix's coldness by now.

"He wouldn't actually kill you." Luke said, although, to be fair, he wasn't really sure that Zath _wouldn't_ kill Syrix. The squirrel well and truly hated the otter.

Syrix, too, seemed to know that Luke couldn't guarantee his safety. He treated Luke to a long and doubtful look, and Luke went off to visit Zath.

"Why can't you just leave him alone?" Luke demanded, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning on the doorway of Zath's room.

Zath glanced up at him, looked somehow bored and irritated at the same time, and made a noise in the back of his throat that was half-snort half-growl. "He's just so pretty." Zath said, his tone sarcastic enough to make Luke flinch at the sheer rancor. "I want to spend every moment of every day soaking up his beauty and grace."

"Right." Luke said. "Really. Why can't you just ignore him?"

Zath sighed and set down the dagger he'd been sharpening. He seemed to actually think about his answer, which was more than Luke had been expecting. Then he looked over at Luke, lifted a shoulder in a helpless shrug, and frowned. "I dunno, Luke. He's like a splinter. Or a scab. I just..._can't_."

"You're tearing up the abbey with your stupid little vendetta." Luke pointed out. "And I can't tolerate that."

Zath rolled his eyes. "Fine." He said. "We'll fight outside the walls."

x.x.x

Luke didn't think Zath was serious. He'd thought the squirrel was being sarcastic again. But he watched how the next time Zath and Syrix got into an argument they stood up and silently walked outside. He followed them, watched them leave the abbey, and then just went back into the building. It wasn't any of his business what went on outside those walls, and, if Zath and Syrix started getting increasingly violent, then...well...that wasn't really his problem.

Besides, Syrix wasn't a permanent resident. He only came in whenever his tribe came by for trading, which was only once a season. He stayed for a week or two and then he was gone, and the entire abbey breathed a sigh of relief. Syrix's tribe wasn't particularly trusted, and, although no one really liked Zath, at least Zath was one of their own. In every dispute they ever had, popular opinion sided with Zath, despite the fact that Luke knew from personal experience that Zath was the one in the wrong nearly every time.

And it was this, probably, that made the abbey jump immediately to the conclusion that Syrix had killed Kirilyn. No one liked him, no one trusted him, and, after all, he _had_ been beating Zath for seasons.

How quickly Zath went from annoyance to victim was a sign of how quickly beasts will take any explanation (no matter how implausible) as long as it means the horror is over.

Luke didn't know what to believe. Syrix was the most obvious choice, and the story he told was improbable at best. Luke didn't know what happened in the forest, and he never would, but he thought, maybe, Syrix _had_ killed Kiri. And Luke had loved the sweet, shy, _smart_ little otter just enough that he needed to strike out quickly and cruelly, and, if everyone believed it was Syrix that did it, well...Luke could believe that, too.

"He didn't do it."

Luke grimaced, turned to face Zath. "What?"

"He didn't." Zath said, sourly, sullenly. "Syrix didn't kill Kirilyn. And don't you dare banish him for this, Luke."

Luke rubbed his eyes. "Shouldn't you be the single most fervent supporter of banishment this abbey has seen in its long history?"

"Should be. Would be, if he'd done it." Zath shrugged jerkily. "Banish him for being an idiot. Banish him for being a bastard. I don't care. But don't banish him for being a murderer cuz we both know he didn't do that."

"Well, of _course_ you'd say we can't banish him for being a murderer." Luke snapped, because he was tired and grieving and Zath was making him see reason when he really, really just wanted to see someone _else_ in pain. "Because then you'd be the next one out."

Zath set his jaw. He didn't say anything for a long time. Then, "Don't do this, Luke. I don't like the bastard, and I'll probably kill him myself someday. But don't go an' _banish_ the idiot for something he didn't even do. Where's your high-minded sense of justice? Where's you fool's code of ethics?"

Luke sighed and decided not to fight Zath on this. "Zath," he said as clearly as he can, "this isn't my decision. The abbot's declared it. Syrix is banished."

Zath's eyes narrowed and flashed. "This isn't right, Luke." He replied, just as clearly but twice as coldly. "And I think it's horrendously unjust that _I'm_ gonna have to be the one to fix it." And with that statement, he turned around and stalked out of the room, tail snapping angrily.

x.x.x

"You say...you want Syrix kept _safe_?"

Zath scowled at Roulin. "Try not to sound quite so shocked, Ro."

"It's just...that's amazingly forgivin' of you. I thought you two hated each other."

"No past tense. No hat_ed_. We _hate_. We _loath_." Zath rolled his eyes and twitched his tail. He was obviously more than a little angry about having to do this; he didn't even _like_ the bastard. "But he didn't do it. And he doesn't deserve to be punished for something he didn't do."

"How d'you know he didn't do it? Did you see it happen?" Roulin didn't like Zath. No one liked Zath. But Roulin appreciated his wit and he was patient enough to deal with all the spite and all the snappishness. He was as close as Zath got to a friend, these days, and the otter rested his chin on his paw and watched Zath pacing with something like fond amusement flickering in his eyes.

"No, of _course_ I didn't see it happen. I don't _stalk_ the idiot." Zath was uncomfortable answering, and it was about as obvious as it could get. "I just..._know_. I know he wouldn't kill Kiri. Kill someone else? Maybe. Me? In a heartbeat. But Kiri? No. He _adored_ Kiri. It was actually quite nauseating."

"Hm." Roulin said. "And you want me to...what? Take him in?"

"Just guard him from Likian. He's Kiri's betrothed, and he wants Syrix dead. Syrix could probably handle Likian, but the little coward's probably going to bring everyone in his extended family, and no single otter could stand against the wrath of that one's great aunt Resinya."

Roulin winced. He'd heard about her fury. "Ah, well. Few can."

Zath nodded and then came to a quick stop, twisting to face him. "So, you'll do it? It doesn't have to be forever, mind. If the idiot's too stupid to run after the first twenty days or so, you're free to withdraw your protection. I just don't want him getting killed over something so obviously untrue."

"Why do you care, Zath? Don't you _want_ him dead?"

"Oh, please." Zath shot Roulin a dark look. "How would I make him suffer if he were to get himself killed?"

Roulin laughed. "He _is_ your enemy, then? And you're asking me to shelter him?"

"Aye, but he's _my_ enemy. Friends come and go. There's always a second chance for love. But rivals? True rivals?" Zath made a helpless gesture with his paw. "Who knows how many of 'em I'll have? I'd like to keep this one alive, just in case."

"Some of us go our whole lives without needing someone to hate."

"Aye, well, _some_ of us don't have the kinda life I do." Zath retorted sharply. "Now, seriously, Ro." He looked at Roulin darkly, speculatively. "Will you help?"

Roulin shook his head and smiled. "Of course I'll help, Zath. If _you're_ willing to believe he's innocent, I certainly am. We'll nab him once he leaves the gates after the banishment, before Likian even has a chance to arm himself."

Zath nodded once and looked, if anything, all the more irate. "You won't tell him, will you?"

"Tell him what?" Roulin asked.

"That I'm the reason you're helping?" Zath frowned. "I'd prefer he not know."

"Why _not_?" Roulin demanded, torn between amusement and frustration.

"Well, it's bad enough I have to save his skin. If he ever finds out that I'm the reason he's alive, he'll think, I dunno, that we're _friends_." Zath grimaced in incredible distaste.

Roulin sighed and gave Zath a wry look out of the corner of his eyes. "You know you are, don't you?"

Zath scowled. "Well, yes, _of course_ I do, you idiot! He does too! We just don't _say_ it."

Roulin rolled his eyes and stood up, deciding not to say anything else. Zath was insane; everyone knew that. It was best, sometimes, to humor his madness.

And, after all, Roulin had never taken issue with saving an innocent...however doubtful an innocent Syrix made.


	4. Chapter Four: Love

There are heroes and there are mistakes, and Syrix has spent the majority of his life attempting to convince his heart that he was made to be the latter. It's not his fault, he knows, and it's not even the fault of that thrice-damned organ of his. He has the heart of a hero, but he doesn't have the soul of one. Who he is...it's just not who he wants to be, and he resents that more than anything.

He doesn't begrudge the gods their murders and their abandonment, but, damn, does he hate them for their cruelties.

It irks him, sometimes, that he is more merciful than the beings he is supposed to worship. But mostly, these days, he is far too distracted to spare them a thought. And why should he, anyway? They never grace him with the same courtesy.

Instead, he fights. He fights, and he kills, and he stains his sword and his paws and his soul, and he does it...he does it for her.

And, really. By now he should have learned not to whore his soul out to the prettiest pair of eyes he can find, but its that damned heroic heart of his that has him playing champion for a princess, and he's never quite had the backbone to break his own heart. It gets broken often enough without him joining in the bloodbath, and, despite what the hundreds of creatures he's slaughtered and maimed and tortured would claim, Syrix has enough mercy left inside him to avoid easy targets. His heart is easily broken. He allows himself this one vulnerability.

She still smiles at him, occasionally, and he hates himself a little for counting each and every vague, listless, haunted-broken_**dying**_ smile as the single greatest triumph he has ever achieved. He forgives himself his idiocy only because he is _very_ well-aware of the fact that he is precisely one of two living creatures who can still make her smile.

Of course, he makes her cry with some regularity as well, and he hates himself for that, too. He is precisely the kind of lovestruck fool who will break the neck of any bastard who so much as steps on her foot without apologizing, and he doesn't know what to do with the fact that, though he's one of two who can make her smile, he is the only one who can still make her cry.

Her heart is easily broken, too, and he shatters it every week or so. But it's inevitable at this point that she's going to break his, and he's always believed that turnabout is fair play. She is going to hurt him, so he'll hurt her, and, maybe, when they finally kill her and take her away and leave him all alone, the bitterness will burn a little less.

And, yes. He's very well-aware of the fact that this is a stupid idea, a ridiculous belief. When they kill her, he is going to kill them. As many of them as he can until they pay him back in kind, and he's going to die painted red inside and out, raw and bloody and screaming his fury.

He was exiled before he could avenge his first lost love. This one...this one will be the cause of his death, and she doesn't even realize how much power she holds over him. Brave and innocent, strong and naive. She is half iron goddess and half sobbing cub, and he would stand in front of the fires of hell and spit them out if it meant he could protect her from them.

The truth of the matter is, Syrix falls easily for the type of beautiful that hides its tears behind a gentle smile. She is precisely the type of perfect that knows its own fatal flaw and embraces it wholeheartedly, and she will die because of who she was born to be, and Syrix will die because of who his heart thinks he is.

He is no hero. He is no savior. He is nobody's hero except maybe hers, and he will _die_ (**he will die**) when they finally kill her.

There are hundreds (thousands, maybe) of creatures who would swear Syrix's heart is made of ice. What they never seem to realize is that ice, for all its frigidity and fearsomeness, shatters under enough pressure. And ice, unlike flesh, can never be made whole again.


	5. Chapter Five: Maturing

Gyren and Opan are lanky otters with fragile, aristocratic cheekbones and matching arrogant sneers; they patrol the inland river about two day's hard walk east from Salamandastron. They're brothers, and they're the epitome of codependency. They are _constantly _in each other's presence, in each other's way. They spend so very much time together, that it is hard, at first, to tell them apart, even though Opan is a good deal taller and Gyren's eyes are a dark brown instead of a light blue. They finish each other's sentences and probably finish each other's thoughts. Honor doesn't know what Opan did for the two seasons he was alive before Gyren was born, but he imagines it must have been a very lonely childhood, indeed.

They have taken a bizarre fondness to Honor, which probably has something to do with the fact that he recently helped solve a little territorial dispute they were having with some shipwrecked pirates. The pirates were raucous and snippy, as well as easily enraged by Gyren and Opan's constant mockery as to their apparent inability to navigate the rocks around Salamandastron, but, overall, they didn't mean any real harm. Honor had gone to talk with them shortly after meeting Gyren and Opan, and the meeting have gone incredibly well, since some of them recognized him from his days as a member of Kydin's crew. Honor had negotiated a peace between the pirates and the otters, and then he'd joined in the pirate's subsequent celebration.

The grog they gave him was more rum than water, and he had staggered back to Gyren and Opan later that night, sloppy and silly. He had declared himself their hero, their savior, and their god, and they had agreed, with solemn expressions and laughing eyes, that he was, in fact, the single most ferocious beast they had ever seen.

The next morning, he awoke with a ferocious headache and the nickname "Slay." He couldn't convince the otters to stop calling him that, so he shrugged and let it happen. After all, Honor wasn't his true name, either, and he wouldn't miss its passing.

They still call him that, of course. Gyren and Opan are not overly bright, not overly intellectual, and they are not up to the challenge of giving him any new nicknames. They call him Slay, and Honor answers to it. He will be moving on soon, anyway. He's only been here for these past two weeks because he's heard rumors of a platoon of the Nameless One's soldiers in the region, scouting out routes to Salamandastron. Honor doesn't know _why_ the ferret has gotten it into his head to prepare for a war against the badger lord, but he's heard the rumors, and so he's here.

Gyren and Opan think Honor's suspicions are hilarious. They've spent their entire lives in this area of the world; they know how mad a beast would have to be to even think of challenging the badger lord.

"He's already tried once, you know." Gyren says one day, unexpectedly breaking the silence. It's one of the three times Honor's been alone with either of them. Opan's back at the stream, trading fish for grog with the pirates, and he and Gyren are chopping wood for a bonfire later tonight. After the initial territorial squabble and bout of name-calling, the otters and the pirates have been getting along famously. Honor predicts that they will continue to do so long after he leaves; the thought makes him feel accomplished.

"Who tried what?" Honor asks, his voice a little breathless. He swings the axe, and the tree he's working on shudders. He's been working for a good half hour now; the seaside heat makes him gasp and sweat.

"The Nameless One. He..." Gyren is leaning up against his tree with his axe dangling lazily form his paw. It isn't immediately obvious why he isn't talking anymore, but, when Honor stops panting and cocks his head to the side, he can hear the distant sound of shouts as well. He wonders, briefly, if Opan and the pirates have started the festivities early, but the high, ringing sound of metal clashing against metal dissuades him of that notion instantly.

For a moment, everything is perfectly, perfectly still.

Then Gyren roars and lunges, sprinting back towards the river. Honor switches his grip on the axe and follows suit. He left his sword back in the otter's hut, but there is no help for that now. And at least he has the axe, though he's never really used one in combat before. Someone had shown him the basics once, though Honor isn't sure right now if it was Kydin, Luke, or Ark. He tries to remember what he knows of the weapon as he races along, but it all feels far and faded away.

When he hits the skirmish, he remembers everything.

The pirates and Opan are fighting the Nameless One's scouts, and Honor marvels at the surge of complete and utter _hatred_ within him as he swings the axe straight into the sigil of the Nameless One, sewn over the heart of the platoon's lieutenant. He hates the Nameless One, and he knows that. But he had forgotten how much like fire hate could feel, burning away in his veins.

The fight is bloody and exhausting. Honor doesn't know what drove the scouts to chancing a battle out in the open, but, judging from the way the scouts are caught between two ranks of pirates, he imagines a group of pirates found them in the forest and ran them out here. It is a brilliant move, in its way, but backing creatures into corners has a way of making them wild and desperate. These scouts do not surrender, even when its two lone weasels, fighting back to back until Honor's axe lodges deep in the sternum of one, shattering the bone inward, and the weasel crumples. Behind him, Gyren's axe chops the head clean off the other, and his body hits the ground dead before the first weasel is done bleeding out.

In the brief, awkward stillness that follows, Honor's eyes fall to Opan, who is lying on the sand. A few of the pirates are crouched around them, and Honor recognizes their medic. He also recognizes the flask of highly potent rum that he's feeding to Opan; he knows a death gift when he sees one. So does Gyren, apparently, because he lets out a thin, keening wail and goes to his brother's side, hitting his knees and staring at the dagger lodged in Opan's chest. It's sticking out from his chest as a steep angle, and, although it seems to have missed the heart, Honor knows it's close enough that Opan doesn't have much time.

The sand below him is taking on a curious dark shade; Honor guesses the cut goes clean through. The dagger must be longer than it seems.

The pirates are moving away, picking up their dead and tending to their wounded, and Honor is left hovering awkwardly at Gyren's side. Opan is gasping, mewling and snarling piteously. His paw moves in jerking motions towards the dagger at his chest, and Gyren stills him with a paw to his shoulder.

"Opan," he starts. His jaw clenches; Honor looks away. "I think this. I think this..."

For once, Opan doesn't finish Gyren's sentence. Instead, he gets a listless, distant look on his face and moves his mouth in soundless awe. "Is this it, then?" He exhales, smooth and then shaky at the end. "I thought...I thought there'd be more."

Gyren's paw is clinging so tight it's trembling, and Honor knows Opan can't feel it. Can't feel a damn thing. Honor sits down hard on the sand, puts his head on his knees, and breathes in sharp to keep himself from screaming.

...

All Honor can feel is the cold. But he know that's better than the alternative.

He's got his back to the stone cliff behind him, and the snow caught between his back and the rock is melting and soaking through his cloak, dripping down the back of his neck. The wind is a capricious, cruel thing, and it whips against him at unexpected moments, howling its whistling war cry as it steals his breath and what warmth he's got left. It is so very, very cold here. His left paw is trembling wildly where it's tucked tight against his chest, but his right paw, clenched in Byren's, is perfectly still.

Byren is curled into him, his torso leaning heavily against Honor's side and his head resting in the crook between Honor's neck and his shoulder. His breathing is slow, steady, and the only bit of warmth Honor can still feel is coming from Byren's body. But even that is slowly fading away. Honor finds himself wishing for the sun with a desperate, brutal longing. It's been so long since he last felt truly warm.

"Slay..." Byren sounds completely calm, completely rational. Honor tilts his head towards him, his chin resting against the top of Byren's head. He's listening. Of course he's listening. "It's not your real name, is it? Slay, I mean. It's not-"

"No." Honor's voice is tight, thin. His jaw is trembling violently, and he's forced to speak in short bursts to avoid biting off his own tongue. Not that he'd really feel it. Not right now. All he can feel now is the cold. Soon, he won't even feel that anymore. "No, it's not." Honor finds himself speaking in an entire dictionary of single syllable words.

Byren exhales, and Honor's eyes flick to the cloud formed briefly in the night air. Everything is so clear here. So pristine. So sharply focused. He watches the cloud form and fade, and he sniffs and curls in tighter. His legs are sluggish, and he can't flex his feet at all; they're simply dragged along with the rest of him as he moves. He closes his eyes, feels his eyelashes like icicles against his cheek.

For a long time, Byren is silent. Then, "It's beautiful out here."

Honor snorts, feels the laugh bubbling up inside him like cheap wine or strong liquor. It's like the ghost of warmth, and he ignores the painful ache of his facial muscles as he smiles. Because..._beautiful._ Really? Admittedly, it's not an ugly landscape, but it is a desolate one. These cliffs are treacherous and imposing, rising up out of the sea and going up impossibly high. Sharp, immovable, and night-black, they are the very teeth of the sky, and Honor and Byren are caught midway up its snarl. They are far enough up now that the sea spray barely hits them, but there is no escape from the ever-present dampness. And the pounding of the sea against the rocks sounds like a thousand soldiers marching their way. Coming to find them, coming to kill them.

The only beautiful thing about this place is the fact that all the colors stand out so vividly against the white of the snow and the black of the sea. The stars are brilliant, but painfully remote. Everything is sharp here; everything is brutally focused. But it only serves to remind Honor that soon everything will dull and fade and blur.

"Well, 'm glad you like it." Honor mumbles, still choking back the laugh that ricochets around in his ribcage. "Took us such a long time to get here."

Byren laughs at that, cheerful and clear. It breaks against the silence like glass against rock; when he's done laughing, the silence reigns on.

Honor lifts his head to stare out at the horizon. His eyes are narrowed, and his jaw is chattering so violently now that his entire head is shaking; he tenses the muscles in his neck until it feels like they will shatter, trying to keep his gaze still and level. He stares at the horizon, but there is no hint of sunrise, and he lets his head fall back to rest against the rocks behind him. His throat is exposed to the cold, and he feels a stinging sensation like a thousand small insects biting down at once. But he ignores it. He isn't completely sure that he cares, at this point.

Byren shuffles around a little, pulling his legs in and kicking them around, and then he settles yet again, huffing in resigned irritation. "'s cold." He says pointlessly, petulantly. Honor's known him for half a season now, and he knows that Byren only gets petulant when he's scared.

He lifts his head and looks down, studying Byren in a detached, distant sort of way. The coat Honor gave him is flapping open, caught in the wind, and Honor blinks slowly. He rallies for a minute, gathering strength, and then takes his free paw and reaches for the coat.

He pulls the coat tighter around Byren and carefully fastens the buttons shut. His paws shake wildly; he concentrates furiously. It takes him several long, frustrating minutes to get all the buttons closed up. He tugs at the coat one last time, fussing with it until the collar is up around Byren's throat, and then Honor tucks his paw back against himself. Byren makes a small noise of contentment and curls his body into a tight ball, still half-pressed against Honor's side. His head is resting on his knees now, but he's still gripping tightly to Honor's paw.

Honor keeps hold, long past the point of numbness.

As the night drags sluggishly on, Byren seems to slip into some sort of daze, and he stares blankly out at the sea, eyes empty and mouth slack. And Honor...Honor watches. He watches the eastern horizon, desperately praying for sunlight. He watches the sea by moonlight, searching for a welcome sail, for an unwelcome sail, for _any_ sail. He watches the dark stain on Byren's coat growing steadily, steadily larger. He watches. He waits. He holds on.

At some unknown, unnamed, unremarkable hour of the very early morning, Byren's grip loosens and drops. The mouse exhales once, shaky and smiling, and he doesn't breathe in again. Honor's eyes slide over towards him, and he slowly, slowly, pulls his paw back and wraps it around himself, curling in and in and in until he's the smallest speck he can be, so small that maybe he can just disappear.

He doesn't cry because he thinks that, maybe, his tears will freeze to his face. He waits. He watches.

Sometime just past sunup, he spots the sail he's been longing for; it's headed straight for him. The weak rays of sunlight land on his skin like the comforting touch of an old, much-missed friend, and Honor chokes on a curse and bashes his paw against the rocks until he can feel something.

The pain, when it comes, is dull and distant. But the bright scarlet blood splattered against the snow is sharp, is clear, is perfectly in focus.

- - -

He goes by Ghost now, and the she-squirrel in front of him is a miracle of youth and arrogance. She leans heavily against her pike and sneers at the growing ranks of vermin across the field. Her name is Lya, and this is her very first battle. She's approaching it with the causal disregard of an old veteran, and Ghost doesn't think he's ever seen nerves as close to steel as those of this youngling in front of him.

When the vermin start up their wild, crazed, roaring war chant, Lya quirks a brow and snorts, wholly unimpressed. When they drag out a family of hedgehogs and split them open from neck to hip, she tightens her jaw but does not cry out. When they cover themselves in the warm blood and whirl in a blood-mad mess of chaos and hate, she cocks a hip to the side, tightens her lips in disapproval, and then spits on the ground. "They goin' t'get to it then, or wha'?" She demands, her voice heavily colored by an accent that is half-regional drawl and half-adolescent impudence.

"Oh, I imagine." Ghost says, just as casually as she does. The rest of the army of otters, squirrels, mice, and hedgehogs is decidedly less nonchalant about the whole ordeal. Some are cursing; some are crying. They press in around Ghost like they can steal his unimpressed unconcern.

Lya has seen too little of warfare to know how to be afraid; Ghost has seen too much of warfare to know how to care. They are a matched pair, the two of them. They watch the oncoming vermin wave like old sailors on the docks, unworried about the inevitable change of the tides and more than a little amused by their compatriots half-suppressed panic.

When the vermin charge, Lya straightens and lowers her pike. There is a smile tugging at her reckless lips, like a cub about to take a running leap into a pond. Honor's lips are thin and straight; there is no rushing, drugging feeling of excitement in him. The headiness of adrenaline won't hit him until after the battle is over.

The vermin rush, and Ghost's troops hold, and they clash like waves on cliffs. The initial collision is a roar, is a bracing sucker punch of sound. After that, he is too focused to hear anything but unexpected metal whistling towards him, and Honor exists in an almost soundless world of war and death and blood.

The battle is short-lived, and the vermin are soundly trounced, and Lya comes up laughing from the last vermin she guts. There is blood all over her paws, all over the front of her tunic, and she rubs distractedly at her face, accidentally covering herself in gore.

Ghost's paws are cleaner, but he knows that's only a matter of perception.

"A'most pity the poor idiots." Lya rolls her eyes, exhaling mightily. A laugh catches her unprepared, and it's a high, breathless giggle. "No _idea_ who they were fightin', eh?"

Ghost gives her a long, wry look. Battle is usually a solemn, scarring affair. Lya's friends are lying wounded around her. Most would be horrified or sick or silent. But Lya knows she has done what she can to save them, knows she fought this battle to protect those back in the village, and Honor wishes he had her simple, sure rationality. He wishes he could do what was in his power to do and never hate himself for not being able to do more.

As they carry their dead away for burial, they walk into an ambush of archers in the trees. A squad of archers, left to cover a hasty retreat. It is unexpected, but not too terribly effective. Vermin are not known for their willingness to sacrifice themselves. They fire off a single volley of arrows and then break ranks, scattering into the forest.

Ghost sends a platoon of infantry in after them, and he turns to survey the damage.

Lya is on the ground with an arrow through her throat. Her paws are up at her neck, and her body is arched, and he figures she was writhing for awhile, trying to pull it out. There is blood all over her paws, but Ghost doesn't know if it's from her, from the vermin she killed, or from the mouse she was helping to carry home.

When the platoon gets back, he throws Lya's body over his shoulders and moves on.


	6. Chapter Six: Struggle

Kydin spends the first three weeks of his reign drunk. His servants (and aren't _those_ bastards taking forever to adjust to? Always following him around, always asking him what they can do for him, always _bothering_ and _inquiring_ and _staring_) are hard pressed to keep up with his liver. He drinks so much alcohol he's in a near-constant state of dehydration, and there are times when Ark has to intervene, stepping in to force-feed water to his king, holding Kydin down as the once-prince screams and rages and squirms as if water burns him. But mostly...mostly Kydin is left alone to brood. And he likes it that way. But, at some point about three and a half weeks in, Kydin looks up to find Riya standing there with her head tilted to the side, her lips pressed together in anger, and her eyes sparking with contempt.

Kydin kisses her to get the sneer off her face and back on his own, where it belongs.

And he doesn't stop kissing her because she tastes like health and life, and he wants to infect her with liquor and slow-motion self-destruction. She lets him because...because maybe she's got just as much self-loathing as he does.

Later he looks at her and tells her how they're alike, how they're both living just so they can watch themselves die. She backhands him across the face hard enough to split his lip open against his teeth. Kydin laughs and spits blood on her pillow. Riya curses him and lashes out, crazed and wild as an injured badger backed into a corner, and Kydin leaves, still laughing. As she slams the door behind him, Kydin hears the sob stick in her throat like the sound of someone choking on blood, and his laughter suddenly tastes of copper.

When he wakes up the next morning alone and curled against her door, he gets drunk before he can figure out what the stinging ache in his chest means.

He runs into Ark at sundown, and the stoat looks a little less than impressed. He asks Kydin what he's doing, asks Kydin if he thinks the crown on his head gives him license to be an utter bastard. Kydin replies that he's always _been_ a bastard, of sorts, and that putting a crown on his head had been neither his idea nor his wish.

They fight, and Kydin loses because he's drunk enough to see four Arks, and there's only ever been one of him. In response to losing, Kydin raids the wine cellar and smashes all of the oldest wines in a rage. In the end, he gets belly-down on the ground and licks up as much of it as he can reach before it soaks into the cobblestones. It occurs to him that as prince he never would have done this; it occurs to him that, as a prince, he had some measure of pride.

But as a king?

As a king he's got nothing but the taste of alcohol and the sensation of slow suffocation.

x.x.x

And then Riya starts hiding from him. It takes him a good month to catch on (because he's _drunk_ and _distracted_, and she has always – _always_ – come looking for _him_,) and another week to figure out that he cares. He's a little less than amused when he finally realizes she's not going to appear in his rooms one day, wearing that thin-lipped and determined expression she has every time she sees him now. Annoyed, Kydin sends a maid off to fetch her, and his queen helpfully sends the maid back with a polite suggestion that he take a flying leap from the battlements.

Kydin spends two full days searching for her (because it's a damn big castle,) and the hangover that sets in a few hours into his search has him clutching as his skull and keening like a newborn. When he finally kicks aside the guards stationed in front of the door and ordered to keep him out, he finds her with a panicked look in her eyes and a decidedly swollen belly, and Kydin . . .

Kydin gets spectacularly, ridiculously, suicidally drunk, and Ark has to wrap his arms around Kydin's belly and wrestle him to the ground to keep the otter from flinging himself off the castle walls. Ark screams at him, roars in his face, and tells him to _stop acting like a cub_ and to _accept your responsibilities_ and to _stop biting my damn paw, you drunken son of a __**whore**_!

Kydin spits into his face and bites down hard enough to draw blood and taste bone, and he spends a good two hours vomiting when, instead of trying to pull his paw _out_ of Kydin's mouth, Ark shoves his paw down Kydin's throat, and Kydin gets this horrible – _horrible_ – feeling of asphyxiation.

And that feeling...it just doesn't go away. For weeks, Kydin feels like he's sipping air through the smallest of straws, and he can never quite catch his breath.

So...he says drunk. And, after that, time passes quickly. Riya's belly swells and Kydin's liver rots, and they avoid each other with downcast eyes and half-hidden snarls.

They hate each other. Utterly. Wholly. Without limitations.

They hate each other with that unique sort of passion that comes from chilled childhood loyalty and aching guilt and bittersweet loneliness. Kydin wants to take a knife and stab it deep into that monstrous stomach of Riya's, wants to destroy what should never have been conceived. And Riya...Riya will do anything to protect this mistake growing inside her. She hobbles like a cripple and winces like a weakling, and she is so damn protective that Kydin wants to kill the cub solely because he knows it will destroy her.

When the...the _thing_ is born, no one tells him.

He wouldn't have realized at all except that he comes across Riya one day and notices that her stomach has shrunken considerably. He asks (hopefully) if the thing has died prematurely, and she tells him (with a vicious sort of snarl) that it is just as stubborn as he is and has survived. Kydin asks to see it, and Riya knows him well enough to tell him that he won't see it til it can protect itself from him. She tells him all about giving birth, and, as Kydin stands there (and feels rather like vomiting again,) Kydin understands how she might want to keep the thing alive. If _he_ had to go through all _that_, he'd get a little defensive about someone killing the damn thing, too.

Still, he doesn't feel anything like fatherly protectiveness. He doesn't see it for half a season, and, when he _does_ see it, he feels a spike of ridiculous jealousy at the sheer _love_ on Riya's face.

And it occurs to him to wonder if this is what love feels like. Not _healthy_ love. He'd had that. Once. With Cyma. But that had been utterly different. That had been the ocean on a calm day, deep and quiet, supportive and enduring. Whatever he had for Riya was a hurricane at sea: brutal and dark, violent and destructive.

But the sea is the sea, and Kydin has been landlocked for long enough now that he's willing to nurse any addiction that makes him feel like he's home. Riya hates him; he hates her. But there's no denying the fact that she's _his_ to hate and _his_ to hurt, and he knows with the kind of certainty that leads creatures to leap from mountains thinking they can fly that he would kill anyone who tried to hurt her.

x.x.x

And then, suddenly, someone tries to kill his son.

It happens one day when Riya takes the little bastard down to visit the city. The bastard walks alongside his mother, holding onto her paw, and, really, Riya only looks away for a _heartbeat_.

A heartbeat, turns out, is long enough to hit a mother in the arm with a hatchet and steal away the cub she clutches. She _should_ have had guards. Ark _should_ have been there. But the masses of Shray love their queen far, far more than they love their drunken, capricious, reclusive king, and it had been thought that the populace alone would be enough to ensure her safety.

But the queen's arm is being stitched up and the prince is missing, and Ark reports to Kydin with exactly the kind of frustrated annoyance that says he knows damn well that Kydin isn't going to get involved.

And Kydin is hungover and bored and doesn't care about his son. He sends Ark away.

And then, an hour or so later, he goes to visit his wife. He finds her in her chambers (which are located precisely as far away from his chambers as the castle can accommodate) with tears running down her face and her arm wrapped in bandages. She looks up, sees him, and doesn't say a damn thing. She doesn't curse him; she doesn't welcome him. She cries with her arms around a cub's stuffed plaything, and Kydin feels his jaw setting without knowing why.

By dawn, he has his son back. The king of pirates is a mysterious and ill-liked figure, but Kydin was once the prince and a captain and a pirate's hero, and who he used to be still guarantees him certain privileges.

Kydin sneaks out of his own castle and makes his way to the city. He looks up old allies; he calls in old favors. He finds his son in the basement of some misguided rebel's hideout, and he spends sixty minutes letting all that stored-up rage burst free like perforated arteries all over these bastards who made his queen cry. When he's done, there are three left living, and he would have killed them too (his mercy is gone, dead, and rotted at this point,) but those were the three he found closest to his son, and he leaves them to be publicly tortured to death for the next two days, as is the customary death for traitors and revolutionaries.

He stands over his son for a long time, and the otter stares, bloody and hungry, and the cub does not cry. Instead, he tilts his head back, looks up at Kydin with narrowed eyes and a hateful scowl, and refuses to ask for help.

Kydin cuts the ties that hobble his son and carries him all the way back to his wife. He learns that his son's name is Rydin, and he hovers over the cub's bed until his legs give, and he passes out from exhaustion and (more likely than not) liver failure.

He wakes up to find Riya has given him a pillow and a blanket and that she's sleeping on the other side of Rydin's crib.

And Kydin _finally_ breaks down and sobs like a cub, choking into his pillow, and Riya doesn't say a damn thing. But she _does_ come close to him, hesitate, and then wrap him in an embrace, and Kydin reverts to who he should have been all these seasons, and he clings to her, and...and...

x.x.x

Kydin spends the next three weeks of his reign getting sober. He spends a great deal of time in Riya's room, screaming into pillows because sobriety _hurts_, and how come no one had told him about withdrawals? Hangovers were so much easier; hangovers were _welcome_. But he's got some glimmering of responsibility now and he can't leave Riya alone anymore. He can't.

Rydin doesn't like him. Kydin should have seen this coming, since Riya had been warning the cub away from him for since the day he was born, but it hurts. A little. Kydin's finally let go of all the hate and anger and fear inside him, and he wishes that the world would just _help_ him here. Just a little. Just enough so he can breath again.

Ark watches him with narrowed eyes and arched brows, but, if he has his doubts, he at least keeps them to his own damn self. Kydin appreciates that, even if he does want to punch the bastard in the mouth every time the stoat catches him in the wine cellar at night, clutching a full bottle of wine and chewing through his lip.

The first one to forgive him is, ironically enough, the one he's hurt the most. Riya takes to eating with him and talking with him, and they spend long nights walking the shoreline of Shray, talking about past victories and future defeats. She brings Rydin with them, once, and they stand in silent sentry and watch as their son charges heedlessly up the steep cliffs. Kydin remembers that kind of fearlessness, and he thinks he lost it somewhere between saving his son and getting sober. The less he drinks, the more he has to lose.

Kydin is afraid, so afraid, that someday he'll wake up and be exactly the kind of king everyone needs him to be. He is so afraid of sacrificing who is he to become who they want him to be. He thinks of everything he's given (his father, his love, his crew, his ship, his sea,) and can't stomach the idea of giving all that he has left. He wakes up at night cold and shuddering, and he can't get back to sleep for hours because he knows.

He knows that someday he's going to lose. There's a battle being waged between the past and the future, and Kydin knows that someday his youth is going to lose.


	7. Chapter Seven: Surrender

On nights like these, Kydin feels old. He feels old and used up and useless, like the elderly pirates he sees hobbling around the docks. No one takes them out to sea; no one spares them a second glance. They are next to useless, and everyone knows it. "Cyma, Cyma," he says, and no one answers. "You lose your grip on life, and it'll leave you behind. It never...it never even looks back."

"Sir?"

Kydin looks up, looks up to find a Guard standing uncertainly twelve paces back up the shoreline. Kydin swallows hard and looks away, his paw tightening around the whiskey bottle. He's been drunk for five long days, and he has no plans to change his state anytime soon. When he brings the bottle to the lips, the burn of it barely even registers. Kydin stares at the sea and tries hard not to sob like a newborn.

"Sir, Riya's coming down to see you."

Kydin laughs, brisk and brittle, and buries his head in his knees. Of _course_ she's coming down to see him. Of _course_ she is. The rest of this damn island is content to leave their king in peace when he's in one of his infamous moods, but Riya has always been precisely the kind of proud that sends her face-first into riptides. Someday, she's going to meet Death and slap him across the face. Kydin hopes he's around to see that.

He hears the slithering of silk on sand before he hears her footsteps, and Kydin wishes she would wear pants instead of dresses, just once, just like old times. He wishes she would just revert back to the king's daughter who fought and raided and killed and did not play _dress up _for anyone. These dresses of hers are occasionally lovely, but he's never liked them. They are blunt reminders of who they are now and how far they've come from who they were supposed to be.

"Kydin." And there's no question in her voice. Only grimness and sorrow and fatigue. This is not a greeting; this is a call to arms. He exhales slowly, feels his lungs hitch just the slightest bit. It has been a trying week. "Kydin, it's time to come back up to the castle."

Kydin doesn't move, just takes another swig of the whiskey, and feels nostalgic for the burn. He remembers when he used to do this more often; he's starting to think maybe it wasn't such a bad time, after all. Anyway, he certainly never wound up like _this_...or, if he did, he never remembered it in the morning. "Take a seat, Riya." He says suddenly, and his voice is low and harsh, scratching like sandpaper. He clears his throat and lifts his head a little, makes a gesture towards the sand beside him. Like most of his gestures these days, it is grand and almost entirely empty.

She hesitates for one long second, and he knows her well enough now (and it had taken him awhile to figure out who she was rather than who she had been; he still sometimes has trouble reconciling their childhood and their adulthood, in his head) to know that she is giving him that long, doubtful look she gets when she's trying to convince herself not to give in to his demands. But he outlasts her, doesn't move at all, and finally she comes to stand beside him, peering out at the ocean. Kydin leans against her a little, just enough to remind himself that she's real and that she's here. Her paw comes down to rest easily on his shoulders. They are comfortable with each other now. They didn't used to be. Kydin thinks that, maybe, the old days weren't worth much, after all.

The dress she's wearing tonight is pure black silk, and Kydin thinks he bought it for her in better days that he can't quite remember right now. Anyway, she's wearing it in mourning, and Kydin wants to sever as many ties to grief as he can. As far as he can tell, he's already paid his debt of tears and pain to Death; he doesn't owe it anything anymore. He doesn't like seeing that dress right now; he lets his eyes slip closed.

"Kydin..." But whatever she wanted to say lodges in her throat. She falls silent and shifts uneasily, unhappily. Kydin understands; he's had words rotting in his throat for days now.

They sit in silence for a long time, listening to the ocean, and finally – _finally_ – Riya sinks to the ground beside him. She presses her forehead against his shoulder and takes deep, steadying breaths. "I am so, so sorry." She says, and the words sound like they came out fighting, sound like they ripped her apart.

"No," he says, "No." And he wraps his arms around her and pulls her against him and tries to offer her comfort. He fails, but at least he can give warmth. "How can you say that? How the _hell_ can you say that?"

Her shoulders tremble, and she makes a low, tortured sound in the back of her throat. Her paws clench in the front of his shirt, and Kydin can't give her comfort, so he presses the whiskey bottle to her lips. She pulls back a little, meets his earnest gaze, and then drinks. She drains the whole damn bottle, greedy in her desperation, and Kydin lets her have it. After all, he's had enough. He's been drunk for five days, and Riya's been facing down the world with clear eyes. He wouldn't begrudge her all the whiskey on the island.

They sit there for an hour, in silence, in pain.

"I just...I don't understand it." Riya's voice, when she speaks, is steely and cold. Kydin recognizes it as the voice she uses when she is trying desperately to hide her fear. "What kind of world is it, Kydin? Where cubs die before they reach their first season?"

Kydin shakes his head. He doesn't know. He's not on speaking terms with this world, and he hasn't been since he realized what his place in it was. It's a cold world, and a cruel one, and he would hate it if it didn't have the strangest tendency to be heartbreakingly beautiful. He sighs and, in his mind, he's playing out a lifetime that will never be lived.

He hadn't known Nika for long, but she had been brave and sweet, and, in those last couple of days when she couldn't sleep and could barely breath, she hadn't cried. She'd lain awake, curled in Riya's lap or in Kydin's arms, and stared up at them with wide, trusting eyes. She was expecting them to save her, and they had failed her. Kydin will never see Nika win a fight, will never see her captain a ship, will never see her fall in love, and he doesn't know what to do with all these plans and expectations that are still waiting oh-so-patiently for Nika to come back.

He hates – _he hates_ – this whole world right now. And, most of all, he hates sitting next to Riya and being completely unable to reach her. They are isolated from each other by all the things they cannot explain. The words in Kydin's throat and the emotions hidden behind Riya's tone have separated them completely. They cannot reach across the division between them. It is too much, it is too far, and it isn't how Kydin is used to feeling these days. It has been awhile since he's felt so damnably alone.

And then suddenly he's standing, his paw holding tight to hers and _tugging_, and she stands with him, confused and surprised. "Come on," he says and pulls her towards the sea, "come on."

"Kydin," she protests, digging her feet in, resisting, "the dress-"

He turns to her, eyes wide and wild. "What the _hell_ does that dress matter now?"

She doesn't question him after that. He pulls again, and she follows. They run into the sea, throw themselves into the fury of the waves, and they swim. They swim out farther than they should, pitting their waning strength against an infinity of apathy, and Kydin is surprised to realize he had forgotten just a little how important this fight really was. He knows that, in the grand scheme of things, the pain and grief and disorientation he's feeling doesn't mean a damn thing; he barely matters at all. But if all he has is the struggle, than he is _going_ to struggle.

Fate doesn't give a damn about him, but that isn't going to stop him from spitting in its face.

After an eternity of burning energy and wasting fury, they surface and stop, gasping and weak. Riya stares at him, weary and sad just like before, but with an undercurrent of something else. Its just a glimmer, really, but Kydin knows what he's looking for now and he sees it all this time around. Defiance. Pride. Courage.

The single most endearing of Riya's traits is that she's too proud to give in. Kydin sees a bit of himself in her, and he thinks that maybe it's narcissistic to love someone for reminding you of yourself, but he doesn't care. At this point, he truly doesn't care.

He's spent the last five days trying to find himself in the bottom of a bottle, and, turns out, he was in Riya's eyes all along.

When they swim back to the shore, they lean on each other for support. And Kydin thinks, maybe, they can do anything (fight any battle, suffer any loss,) as long as they have each other to lean on.


End file.
